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Create a Free Mobile Website with Winksite and Keep All The Revenue Too

winksiteIf you’re in the market for a quick and easy mobile website, Winksite is worth a look. A free account allows you to create up to 5 different mobile sites, which can each be customized from Winksite’s library of functionality (which they call channels).  Creating a site is as easy as giving it a name and a unique url (all linked off of winksite.com), and choosing what types of content you want to offer on your site.  The creation process starts with up to 3 pages of text, an option to mobilize your blog (via RSS), and choices from the community & collaboration channels (such as events, feeds, notes, chat, forum, surveys, guestbooks, and links).  You have the option of whether your site appears in Winksite’s directory and under what category and location (and content rating).

The interesting part of a Winksite mobile site is all the community functions (channels) you can include to increase return engagement.  Such channels include a journal, feeds, links, events, reports, notes, chat, forum, surveys, zine, and guestbook to create an almost Facebook-like social site around your mobile site.  You can also invite people to become members of your site, send broadcasts to members and send messages to other winksite’s.

Winksite currently does not offer any statistics other than basics (visits, members), but David Harper, Founder of Winksite, mentioned that may be a revenue model they’ll pursue in the near future.  Winksite integrates with several different mobile advertising platforms, including Google AdSense, admob, admoda and others.  You can control which channels ads showup on, as well as ad frequency and placement (top, botton, random, or top & bottom).  100% of the revenue collected from advertising is retained by the site owner, who can also create what are called self-service ads to advertise sponsors or self-promotions.

While their terms of service clearly says the Winksite’s service is for non-commercial use only, Harper says that they have many commercial sites using the service and have no problem with other commercial organizations using the site.  Harper’s long term goal is to get as many eyeballs on their mobilized sites as possible and build value eventually (he compared their business plan to Google’s).  Winksite has allowed Harper and parent company, Wireless Ink Corporation, to gather deep consumer insights into the mobile market, which they use for other paid services they offer and are developing (mobile sharing/consulting, etc.).  With over 60,000 publishers, including large companies such as Warner, Nokia, and Atlantic records, Winksite’s services are probably “safe” for use for other companies.

Give Winksite a try and let me know what you think.

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Tetherball – A Thousand Times Worse Than Loyalty Cards

theftgrey_pumpkinAs you may be aware – I hate loyalty cards.  I think they’re a pain in the butt and offer way more reward to the company than to me.  I don’t mind loyalty programs, but I want the burden to be on the company to keep track of what I’ve purchased and my rewards.  This may be what led to the development of Tetherball, which is a service that connects mobile advertising & marketing directly with individual consumers via a small rfid chip on their mobile devices.  Marketers and advertisers seem to be estatic about the possibilities, but to me, it sounds a thousand times worse than loyalty cards.

Security Issues

While it sounds convenient to have a sticker on your mobile device that can interact with devices at a store, there’s usually very little security in current rfid technology.  This means that anyone with the proper device can read the information that’s stored on the rfid chip.  There’s no way for the owner of the mobile phone to turn off the rfid or control what information is on it or who can access it.  There’s also nothing to stop the store that gave you the chip from tracking you in places you may not know about.

Awareness Issues

I wonder just how much people who are using these rfid devices understand how the company is using their information.  Are they aware of the possible security and privacy risks?  Are the companies devulging any of these possible issues?

Scaling Issues

Even if you like the idea of a rfid chip for a loyalty program, how is it going to work when all the loyalty programs start doing it?  Is your mobile device going to be covered in stickers?  Just think about how many loyalty cards many people carry – watch the next lady with a big purse shuffle through a card deck looking for the proper card.  Will the companies be able to access the information on the other chips?

Transferability Issues

What happens when you get a new mobile device?  Will you be able to transfer the sticker to the new device?  Probably not.  So you’ll have to go through some sort of new sticker transfer process.  What if you have multiple devices?  Depending on how the technology is implemented, there may be issues with controlling who is actually using the loyalty chip.

Less Invasive Technology

It seems like there would be less invasive ways to use mobile technology for loyalty programs.  Many new phones are smartphones – or Internet enabled, which means they’re able to connect to an Internet website.  Many also have the ability to connect to wireless hotspots.  As the price for these devices comes down, more people will have them.  A company could use their wireless network in-store to easily create the same sort of loyalty programs without having the issues presented above in an rfid chip.

What Would You Do?

Is there a company you trust enough to put a rfid chip on your phone?  Are you concerned about your privacy and security of your information?  What do you think?

(photo by grey pumpkin @ Flickr CC)

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Monetize Your Mobile Site with AdMob

admoblogoOnce you have a mobile site, it would be nice to get some revenue from it.  AdMob provides a large advertising network and full control over what type of ads show up on your site and where.  They also give you the ability to approve ads before they show up.

AdMob is a good mobile advertising network for publishers who do not already have their own mobile advertisers.  Their additional services such as analytics and providing various landing page options to advertisers make them a valuable mobile advertising platform as well.  Revenue sharing starting at 40% isn’t bad for being able to get up and running quickly.  Larger publishers should be able to negotiate better sharing percentages. – Monetize Your Mobile Site with AdMob – Sarah Worsham – New Media Hub

Please head over to the rest of my review at New Media Hub for the full details.  If you’ve used AdMob, I’d love to hear your opinions.

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